What does MICON stand for?

While the AO schedule cannot be specified at this time, the following is estimated based on earlier AO's and related missions: AO release Dec/Jan 2009 Proposals due March/April 2010 Phase A selection July/Aug 2010 Phase A concept study report May/June 2011 Mission selection Early fall 2011 Preliminary Design Review Nov 2012 Critical Design Review TBD Launch 2016 Timeframe End of Operations Launch + 2 to TBD years depending upon target This partnership opportunity is being issued to select teaming partners to help prepare the GSFC Discovery candidate mission concepts for the initial proposal submittal; to assist in the Phase A concept studies if the mission is down-selected; and to provide a flight qualified system should the mission be selected for flight.

He argues that on the strategic level, the US failed to fully comprehend as-Qaeda's "glocal nature," by which he means its global-level aspirations and mission concept, locally networked and conducted.

The team's mission concept includes one orbiter, two balloons and two short-lived landers, all of which would launch into space on two Atlas V rockets.

Spain had made good use of the mission concept in extending its domain over other colonies.

Although the Jupiter mission will go forward first, NASA plans to continue studying the Saturn mission concept.

There is a wealth of material on future missions, with papers on the extrasolar planetary imaging coronograph, completing the census of extrasolar planets in the Milky Way with the microlensing planet finder, the science case and mission concept for the Single Aperture Far-Infrared (SAFIR) observatory, the identification of organic molecules in space, and expected effects of hot CCD pixels on detection of transits of extra-solar planets with the Kepler mission.

It is not enough to inculcate new devices piecemeal into existing mission concepts to meet such challenges; instead, the SOF community needs to fundamentally reconsider how it will fit into the 21st century security architecture.

McComas and his team at the Southwest Research Institute for their outstanding work developing the IBEX mission concept and leading the winning proposal effort.